Arizona forests' future hinges on delicate balance

From The Arizona Republic: FLAGSTAFF - Inside a stainless-steel freezer at Northern Arizona University's research greenhouse, clear plastic bags bulge with ponderosa-pine seeds, each bag marked with the location where students and workers collect the pinecones each autumn.

The freezer holds enough seeds to grow as many as 1million trees. On a recent June afternoon, 5,600 pine seedlings waited for shipment to a site in the White Mountains burned last year in the Wallow Fire. The greenhouse has also sent seedlings across town to the site of the 2010 Schultz Fire and has shipped tens of thousands to areas blackened by the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire.

It was after that fire that the university began growing the pine seedlings, initially as part of a Trees for the Rim, a replanting project started by the non-profit Arizona Community Tree Council. In the years since, the greenhouse has grown seedlings for similar projects as far away as Mount Lemmon outside Tucson, all in an effort to restore forests devastated by wildfire.

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